quisquous

As an advisor and strategist at the Naval war college in Quantico throughout the 1970's, I deeply emmersed myself in SSI and Avalon Hill startegy games as a hobby attaining high levels of proficiency. As an electronics engineer I enjoyed dabbling in computer hardware since 78 when I wire-wrapped my first OSI motherboard and 7-segmant alpha pnuemeric display. Since then I have delved into many computer games, but, with the exception of Empire Deluxe, I tended to exlude war games as being inadequate. Being a huge advocate of SSI's War in Europe and War in the Pacific, I was very excited to hear of the release of Global Conflict of which I pre-ordered a copy. Not to get to verbose here, I was disappointed, either at the inconsistency of the AI or at the lack of personnal apptitude. To highlight my frustration, let me briefly transcend time back to the table top gaming era where precise knowledge of rules and consequences were paramount to most victories. Of the four manuals and over 100 pages of text released with the original SSI War in Europe campaign game, my colleques and myself developed many ahistorical versions demanding in excess of 500 pages of modified rules, conditions, and scripts. In comparison, the rather brief Global Conflict manual offers little assistance when trying to determine a rational for action permitted (or not) by the AI. While many can be cited, a few leep to mind: The inabibility of the AI to allow an attack upon Dakar begs for an explanation. Dispite a clear weather summer day with a full strength German unit within a headquarters supply unit the attack could not be even attempted dispite being in an adjacent hex for several turns. Any thoughts? Or why once taking Ireland can German units not transport out nor be reinforced wihin Ireland for as much as four turns? And attacking units in China completely mystifies me in regards to repeatability (or lack of). To keep this initial inquiry as succinct as possible I would simply like to offer the above observations as an invitation for further discourse on my frustrations and possible lack of skill. I do not know how large your player-base extends, but perhaps a players manual which more completely review the steps used by the AI would be well received and worth the effort to produce. I see many after market 'advise' manuals for other games, and I would certainly purchase a manual which would delve deeper into the fine nuances of the game. I would not, on the other hand, choose to pick up previouse campaign models (games) for the purpose of learning tricks, methods, and nuances of the full version edition. One final note. I love what I see in the game and the potential it exhibits. I believe in time this will grow into a favorite passtime for me.